Welcome to Gaia! ::

*checks list of slightly obscure games*
I'll talk about "Lost in Blue", a game on the DS and Wii, that is a sequel (no storyline relation amongst games) to other similar titled games in other systems, and made by Konami.

It first appeared for the Game Boy under the name "Survival Kids", back in 1999, and I've looked for it ever since back then, after reading a review on a magazine. But being a 10 year old without much knowledge of internet and, as expected, not retaining much info about the game I was interested in to help other people find it in real life, I didn't manage to do much...
Until 7 years later when, in one glance, I've seen the back of a game box for the DS that triggered my memory.

Lost in Blue is one of those games that didn't manage to be mainstream and got slightly under "secondstream". Think of Mario, Master Chief and Company as Mainstream, Spyro, Ratchet, Harvest Moon and others as the stuff directly below, and then there's this kind of stuff. Good enough of a concept to make a fan base, not enough notoriety to go making major sequels.

And to be fair, I only retained it in my memory for so long because the game drastically resembled pokemon, and it caught my attention enough for me to want to play it.

Lost in Blue is a game about surviving on an island. The beginning will suck. You're a kid, and you got stranded. All you have to eat will be coconuts and crabs. And Mushrooms that will certainly have a secondary effect. You'll still eat them if you can manage a secondary effect such as "burning throat". There's lots of water, so who cares? You'll starve a LOT.
What to do? You do whatever other stranded people do! You build Fireplaces to keep warm, rocks stuck on stick to hammer coconuts open, sharpened sticks to catch fish. Eventually, you manage to Survive!
And you explore in your free time.
You later get a girl, who will either > break her glasses, get a broken knee or whatever reason keeps her completely independent of you< While she seems rather useless, she can cook stuff (somehow, without tools) to make them fill more hunger, and both will get a bit full with a single serving of anything if she's cooking it, rather than only one of you.
She won't go anywhere without you either, which can be bothersome if exploring further require "two people to push a rock" and you have to bring her all the way from your home cave.
And as you explore you find new creatures. Most hunt able or even tame able, from monkeys, to boars, to eagles and pearl filled oysters. New kinds of plants, mushrooms, fish, bugs, waterfalls, cliffs, and generally everything you'd expect in an island. And there's a lot to do while you haven't made all the tools you can.

Your objective? Get off the island, off course. There's always at least half a dozen possible endings, which might include finding Pirates, Natives, stranded ships, and other assortment of stuff, to steal/ask to make/find a boat from them or just keep to your cave collecting lots and lots of materials to build a boat out of twigs. Oh and fill it with enough provisions of course. There's also the chance to ask people to come get you, but giant SOS sings and finding a Radio isn't as likely to be included in the version of the game as one would expect. In fact, I made those two up. I know at least one version has you leaving by other means, but don't ask me which and how.

The games aren't that long though, and may get repetitive fast. But hey, that's the one that got picked off on my list to talk about, and it's in the list for a good reason. I liked, maybe others will too.

You just reminded me of another game, one called "Another Code" or whatever is it's similar correspondent on other regions is, which also happens in an deserted island not of the same kind, but one with abandoned buildings and stuff and the objective isn't surviving but discovering the mystery behind the island and how the ghost that's following the main character died and why.
At least your description, up to and included thinking it was boring from start, reminds me a lot of what people say about it. There isn't much of an audience for Puzzler Visual Novels.
Ashley's DS is called a DAS there. ninja


Either ways, I haven't played all Lost in Blue games on the DS fully, so its normal that I have no idea which one that one you're mentioning might be, and I'm assuming the kid's DS is just the stand-in for his menu.